I was only able to go to the ‘patch’ for thirty minutes last night, but it proved well worth the effort. I was late down as I had to pick up the children from yoga class and as I was late I headed straight to the spray field, as this is where the majority of birds have been recently. This proved to be a good decision as the flooded area had dried out considerably and was attracting a lot of birds. Phil was already down there and as I walked out to join him a Pratincole flew in front of me showing its dark under-wing and lack of white trailing edge to the secondaries proving it was a Black-winged Pratincole. It flew around briefly and landed amazingly next to another Black-winged Pratincole. This was another new species for the ‘patch’ for both Phil and I, and made it three new ‘patch’ species for me in four days taking my total to 195 species. Collared Pratincole is seen very occasionally in Dhahran but I have not seen one this year making it even more surprising to see Black-winged Pratincole. The birds were reluctant to fly and appeared very tired so we did not disturb them too much and left them sitting on the muddy edge of the flooded area. I then had to leave, as I needed to go and pick up the organic vegetables from the farmer.
